ENG503 Lecture 5 The Dispossessed 07-02-2014

ENG503 Lecture 5 The Dispossessed 07-02-2014

ENG 503 Lecture 5 07/02/14
Lecture 5 07-Feb-14
Vea – femininity in its object form
- Invested w/ power by males,
- But limited in her power
- An an exciter of male attention (the male gaze),
- And confined to an essentially social role as hostess, etc
- She could be so much more
o Allows herself to be objectified.
- Object in other light
o Her swallowing whole social Darwinist male ideas
o About the social necessity of Survival of the Fittest
 Ideas which she argues for with some heat at the party
 And which she allows her to further underestimate and so dismiss
Shevek… who seems less than a man to her at their parting
Takver – multifaceted character with as many social roles as there are private sides to
her personality
- Female scientist with a meaningful job
- A lover
- A mother
- A partner in political (even revolutionary) activity
- And one of perhaps two people (Bedap s the other) who understands Shevek –
often better than he understands himself
Through all three characters Le Guin argues for the imp of women given the
contribution they make in these societies, esp. Annarian society, for reminding us of
ways women willingly limit themselves in relations with men, for promoting women’s role
in the process of scientific (and political) advancement.. and for advancing the cause of
female/male equality
Rulag is seen as cold.
DISPOSSESSED Synopsis
th
- Indebted to 19 century C Russian anarchist, Prince Alekseevich Kropotkin
(1842-1921)
o Published ‘Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution’ in 1902
- Le Guin recognized other influences on her political though in the evolution of her
utopian novel
o including the Taoist philosophy of Chuang Tzu (a disciple of Lao Tzu)
o And the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (see his poem “The
Mask of Anarchy” as well as “Queen Mab” and his pamphlet The
Declaration of Rights)
 [Shelley was firmly opposed to authoritarian gov’t]
- LG writes “Odonianism is anarchism. Not the bomb in the pocket stuff, which is
terrorism…; no the social Darwinist ‘libertarianism’ of the far right, but anarchism,
as prefigure in early Taoist though… ENG 503 Lecture 5 07/02/14
- For Pt. 2 (allusions to Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid) nothe following passages in the
dispossessed:
 Ch. 4 pg 117 His unhappy re